


Life Study

by sweatervest



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Steve Rogers, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Iron Man 3, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Tony Stark Has A Heart, bad art jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27361012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweatervest/pseuds/sweatervest
Summary: Steve gets a side gig as a model for a local art class. Tony probably could have handled it better.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 115





	Life Study

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing fic again this summer as stress relief, but only recently decided to start sharing them. 
> 
> This was supposed to be entirely fluff and humor, but then some plot snuck in and now there are also some serious conversations about feelings. My apologies to artists everywhere for the bad/extremely obvious jokes.

In the weeks after everyone returns to the tower, things are quiet. There’s a mission or two: an occasional big task that involves the team running through the city after something spitting destructive goo, gas, or, on the rare occasion, a solid. Sometimes, they have to talk to the press, which is always a mission in itself. (There is, Tony notes while watching the Stark Industries PR Team earn their yearly bonuses three times over, a few valid reasons the Avengers Initiative was nearly canceled. He’s just not sure if he should be comforted he’s not the only walking disaster.)

Once they’ve patched up the worst of the Tower’s gaping holes, the rest of the team moves in. Tony isn’t sure how to feel at first, his home full and loud for the first time in… Jesus, ever. His parents had purchased a sprawling home and filled it with art, instruments, and the latest technology, but not many people. Already quiet, it was nearly a tomb after they died.

Now, there are loud arguments over whose turn it is to pick the movie (Clint’s) or who ate Clint’s Thai leftovers (Thor, though Steve had his Extra Innocent American Hero face on). Last week, Tony went upstairs for a late lunch to find Nat perched on the back of the sofa and watching the TV with the same assessing stare she reserved for targets. On the screen, an animated raccoon congratulated her on paying off her loan. 

Steve was in the communal kitchen, watching the game from a safe distance while he drank a mug of tea. 

“You have any idea what that is?” Tony asked him, pouring a cup of coffee. 

“Wasn’t allowed to ask,” Steve replied with a wry smile. “Not after I said I didn’t think she should trust him.”

Tony chuckled. “Well, if you decide you’re too close to a demonstration of how a Wii remote can be used to kill someone, couch’s open in the workshop.”

Steve grinned. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

\--

Routines aren’t that hard to come by, after a while, even with all the extra people underfoot. Well, sort of underfoot. Tony makes a list and digs in: pack more arrows for Clint, light Nat’s suit so she’s easy to distinguish in battle, add a gauntlet that calls back Steve’s shield and no other metal. Figuring out vibranium’s unique magnetism had been…interesting. Of course that was the day Steve had decided to take Tony up on his offer of space in the workshop. While Tony wasn’t exactly thrilled by the scolding look he got, at least it was after Steve had managed to keep the Audi he’d been tinkering with from coming through the glass wall of the workshop and crushing him to death.

Note to self: remove all cars to garage next time.

After that, Steve spends more time with Tony, usually reading in an old wing-back chair he’d found somewhere in storage. 

\--

Tony gets used to Steve’s presence, so he notices when Steve’s not there. The search for Barnes is infrequent and crackling with dead ends. Tony asks JARVIS to track when Steve’s not in the workshop. Which is not weird. It makes sense; what if he disappears on one of his searches that are always suspiciously light on the details?

This is how Tony knows Steve hasn’t been by in five days the next time he walks in. 

“Ah, the American hero returns,” Tony greets. “Haven’t seen you much lately, Cap. Some new promising lead you’d like to share with the class?”

“No,” Steve says. “I’ve been taking a drawing class. Sam’s idea.”

“I thought Sam’s idea was ultimate fighting.”

“It was. But there’s probably a rule prohibiting a super soldier participating. Or there soon would be.” Steve shrugs. “Wouldn’t exactly have been fair.”

“Huh. Shame. We could have really made a buck betting on you.”

“Guess you’ll have to be content with the millions you have.”

“Yeah. It’s really all about the chase, though, you know?”

“You’re talking to a poor kid from Brooklyn,” Steve says, but he’s smiling. “Chasing was all I did.”

“You chase down enough for the class?”

“I figured it out. They agreed to let me model for the life drawing class after mine.”

“They just don’t teach kids bargaining like they used to. Well, you’re always welcome back down here.”

“Thanks, Tony.” Steve folds his arms, leans one hip against a table. “You can come by some time. To the class.”

Tony blinks. “Sure, Cap. I’m not much of an art guy, though, more…” And here he circles his arms to encompass the workshop littered with machinery and blueprints. “You know.”

“Ignoring the part where you’re sketching all the time, you let me in to your workshop. Figured I’d offer up mine.”

“Oh. Well, that’s… thanks.” Tony clears his throat. “So. You want an escort home one of these evenings?”

Steve’s mouth twitches. “The city looks a bit different. I wouldn’t mind a guide.”

Tony laughs. “You got yourself a deal.”

\--

It’s another couple weeks before Tony can drop by Steve’s art class. Clint’s arrows turned out to be explosive, and it took a while for one corner of the workshop to stop smoldering. 

There’s a surprising level of security in place when he arrives. A guard escorts Tony from the door to the front desk. The receptionist picks up the phone and has a short conversation before smiling at Tony and asking him to “just wait over there, please. Miss Fontenot will be with you shortly.”

Miss Fontenot turns out to be a woman in her mid-thirties wearing a pantsuit Katharine Hepburn would have swooned over. She insists he call her Daphne. 

“Front of the house has to be formal, you know,” she says, “but the miss always feels so beauty queen to me, and I’ve had enough of those.”

“Is the security typically this tight?” Tony asks. 

“We usually try to maintain some level of privacy for our students and models, but with Steve volunteering for us…” She sighs. “Well, that privacy is harder to come by.”

“Sure,” Tony says, texting Pepper about making a sizeable donation to the center. 

“All right, everyone,” Daphne announces as she leads Tony through a door. “Let’s take a break. I’m sure Captain Rogers wouldn’t mind stretching.”

Tony looks up and nearly crushes his phone. 

There are chairs and easels ringing a platform in the center of the room. Steve is standing on this platform. Steve is also, Tony can’t help but notice, entirely naked. No artfully draped bolt of fabric. No well-placed bowl of fruit. Not even his shield. 

“Tony,” Steve calls brightly. “One second!”

Then he bounds— _BOUNDS_ , Tony’s inner monologue shrieks—off the platform and disappears through a door. 

“You seem surprised,” Daphne comments with a knowing look. 

“I, uh.” Tony clears his throat. 

She laughs. “It’s all right. For most people, it’s a bit of a shock. It’s tricky for students initially, too, but Steve is so at ease, it really helps the class concentrate on their work.” Daphne smiles. “He’s been very generous with his time.”

“That’s our Cap,” Tony hears himself say. “Always…putting himself out there.”

Tony spots Steve walking back towards them. He’s barefoot and tying the belt of a blue silk robe that’s the same shade as his Battle of New York uniform. 

This, Tony decides, is getting progressively worse.

“I’ll be just over there,” Daphne says, pointing to where a clump of students have gathered. 

“I’m glad you came, Tony,” Steve says, still grinning. “Stuff like this, it’s not usually people’s speed. You should have seen the guys’ faces when they found me sketching a field in France once.”

“Uh, yeah. I just…I remembered what you said and thought.” Tony waves his hands in vague gesture. “You know. I should see what…your workshop looks like.” He clears his throat again. “Looks like I got the time wrong.”

“Well, it’s still real nice of you,” Steve says. “I appreciate it.”

The thing about Steve is he has this way of looking at people that makes them feel like they’re the only thing that matters. Earnest, maybe, but without any kind of naiveté. Steve is looking at Tony like that now, sun-bright joy.

Tony is kind of freaking out. Nudity has never bothered him—well, not within the last two decades, anyway—but this is Steve. Captain America. Standing up on a platform like a goddamn classical statue and Tony’s head is swimming—

“I think we’re ending early tonight.”

Tony jumps. Daphne smiles pleasantly. 

“If that’s all right with you, Steve?” she continues.

“You bet.” 

“We’ll see you next week, then. A pleasure, Mr. Stark.”

Tony shakes Daphne's offered hand. “Tony. The pleasure is all mine, Daphne.” 

Daphne smiles, then moves to start putting away materials and cleaning up the studio.

“Let me just get changed, Tony,” Steve says.

There’s a large appliqué of Steve’s shield rendered in the same fabric stitched to the back of the robe. 

“I’m having a stroke,” Tony mumbles. “This is what a stroke feels like.”

No one’s close enough to hear him, but Tony can still feel some curious gazes on his back. Normally, he’d charm and socialize but normally, he has not also had an uncensored view of Steve Rogers.

“Ready?” Steve asks, emerging fully clothed.

“Um. Was that your shield? On the robe?”

“Oh. Yeah, there was some extra fabric lying around after the textiles classes ended, and a few of the students made it for me. The old robes are pretty scratchy, and since I’m not letting them pay me…” he shrugs. “It was nice of them.”

“Uh huh.”

“They’re closing up now. I’ll show you my work another time, if you come by earlier.” Steve leads him out, still smiling.

Steve knows the receptionist and security guards by name, says goodnight to each of them individually. The receptionist, a college-aged man, blushes at the attention. Steve pretends not to notice. He shakes hands with the security guards, making a joke that gets a laugh from the men who were unmoved when Tony walked in. 

Poor kid from Brooklyn, Tony remembers as they exit onto the city street. Then a bonds salesman. Then national hero. 

“So,” Tony says into the relative silence. “You were _naked_.”

“I was,” Steve acknowledges, a corner of his mouth quirking up.

“In front of people.”

“Yep.”

“You’re Steve Rogers. Captain America.”

“I am.”

“Posing nude.”

“That’s what life study means, Tony.”

“I—how is it an American icon from the 1940s—bravery, honor, sacrifice, whatever else they say in the voiceover of Captain America: The Ride—has no problem standing completely naked in front of a room full of strangers? For a weeks at—what? Why are you laughing?”

“Tony, seriously?” Steve manages. “I was in the army. You try having any kind of privacy during a war.”

“I just didn’t know you were so. Draw me like one of your French girls.”

“You do realize you’re quoting a movie set six years before I was born, right.”

“Yes, fine, but what I meant was—”

“What you meant,” Steve interrupts, not unkindly, “was you expected me to be uncomfortable with my body, nudity, and sex because I’m from the 1940s.”

That is what he meant, Tony realizes. He chews it over for a minute or two in silence.

“Makes me sound like an asshole, doesn’t it?”

Steve claps a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”

The Tower is dark on their return. Everyone, Tony remembers, is somewhere else tonight. They settle in the kitchen, Steve getting them both a beer. Neither of them move to turn on the overhead lights, instead sitting in the dim soft light over the sink. It’s like being in the art center again: a vignette, just the two of them. Maybe that’s why Tony pushes. 

“You’re really not uncomfortable?”

“My body is just a body.” Steve pauses. “Okay, my body is a special case, but what is there to be ashamed of? It gets me around. Better than I ever thought it would. It’s… a gift.”

“Many people certainly seem to think so.”

Steve shoots him a look. 

“What? You set me up for that one.”

“ _The point is_. It’s not stated outright in the Rebirth files, but anyone who looks at them carefully enough would know. Without the serum, I probably wouldn’t have made it past 35. So.” Steve reaches across the counter, touches Tony’s chest where the arc reactor used to be. “A gift.”

Tony stares down at Steve’s hand. There’s a lump in his throat as he processes _a gift_ being synonymous with _Tony Stark_. 

“You’re a goddamn romantic, you know that, Rogers?” he mutters to Steve’s hand.

“It’s been mentioned,” Steve replies in a low voice, amused. 

The want prickles along Tony’s skin, but then he remembers the news cycle: helicarriers in the Potomac; SHIELD’s secrets hemorrhaging onto the internet; HYDRA; Steve and Nat unaccounted for until—

“It scared me shitless.” Tony stumbles over the words. “When Nat called to say you were in the hospital. I didn’t think that was even possible.” 

Steve straightens, pulls back. Then, “me neither.”

“You still have scars,” Tony continues, looking up at him finally. “From the gut shot.”

 _I saw them,_ he wants to say, _when you were modeling._

Steve rubs a hand across his middle. “They’ll probably fade. Not exactly a precedent for me to look to.” 

“Suppose we could look through the old files,” Tony says. “Erskine’s notes aren’t complete, you know, but…might be something.”

“I had other scars before the serum,” Steve says quietly. His eyes are somewhere else. “They’re gone now. I didn’t think I’d miss them.”

“Didn’t think you’d miss the little guy.” Tony meant it to be a question. 

Steve looks back sharply. Then his face relaxes into something small and lost. “I don’t, not really.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I still wake up sometimes, thinking I can’t breathe. Asthma. Or the ice.”

There’s always been something about Steve Tony couldn’t quite get a handle on, something just out of reach. It slides into place now and if he were alone, Tony would have laughed bitterly. Where else would there be a blind spot, but the place where they overlap? 

“Did you go to war because you thought it was your duty or did you go to war because you wanted your death to mean something? Lay down on a wire so the other guy makes it home, instead of dying slowly in a factory. Trade your life, with its dwindling time, for someone who could live longer if the war wasn’t a shadow over the world.”

Steve stiffens, his jaw tight. A breath hisses through his lips. “Shit, Tony.” 

“You know, recklessness? It’s kind of my thing.” Tony saunters around the counter into Steve’s space, pokes Steve’s chest. “You’re stealing it. Retroactively.”

“Ah,” Steve murmurs, catching Tony’s arm just above the elbow before he can wriggle away. “But I’ve never announced my home address on television to a known terrorist and _everyone else_.”

“Yeah,” Tony mutters, chewing his lower lip. “Guess I’ve still got that.”

“Speaking of scared shitless.” There’s something brittle in Steve’s eyes, half buried under his usual Captain America battle face. “At least you knew where to find me.”

“Suppose I did,” Tony agrees. “I’m not very good at being found.”

“Historically,” Steve says, a curl of laughter dropping his voice low again, “neither am I.”

“I also frequently make poor decisions.” Tony watches his fingers slip up under Steve’s shirt, find the raised scars from where Barnes tried to kill him. Something delicious happens to Steve’s breath, his grip on Tony’s bicep squeezing. “Lack of impulse control. It’s in my file.”

“I believe I’ve seen that.”

“Prone to jealousy.” 

“I don’t think that’s listed.” Steve’s closer now, his eyelashes swept low. “Officially.”

“Sometimes I’m not very good at sharing,” Tony tells him, tilting his face up. “Don’t play well with others. Like my teammates. Or people looking at my teammates.”

“That I have seen.”

“It’s fine. I can suffer in silence.”

Steve outright laughs at that and Tony might be more miffed if Steve wasn't pulling him forward. 

“You’ll have to work on it.”

“You gonna give me an incentive, Rogers?”

Steve makes a sound in the back of his throat that sounds suspiciously like a purr and Tony can’t get enough air in his lungs. Then Steve is kissing him, firm but not pushing. Making his stance known. Like how Steve covers his back in battle, Tony thinks. Or how he convinces them all to order Thai takeout for the third day in a row.

“I believe,” Steve murmurs, when he pulls back and presses a dry kiss to the corner of Tony’s mouth. “I may be able to come up with something.”

**Author's Note:**

> (I wrote this fic first, and the scene of Nat playing Animal Crossing was what led to "Avengers Crossing.")


End file.
